2/20/18

The Girl with the Red Balloon, by Katherine Locke (Albert Whitman 2017), is top notch YA time travel goodness! It's the story of a modern American girl, Ellie Baum, granddaughter of a Jewish Holocaust survivor, is visiting Berlin on a school trip. When a red balloon drifts by, she grabs it....and finds herself in 1988, still in Berlin, but such a different place (there's still a year to go before the wall comes down). The red balloon was not supposed to have found Ellie. It was supposed to magically carry an East Berliner in particular danger to the west. But instead of a successful mission accomplished, the runners for the magical balloon operation that night now have Ellie on their hands.

Kai and Mitzi, the runners, don't know what to make of Ellie, but shelter her in their hideaway house. Her bad German and lack of identity papers and working knowledge of "how not to get arrested by the Stazi" make her a danger to herself and to them, and they are not safe even at the best of times (as well as actively working against the state, Kai is Romani, and dark-skinned, and Mitzi is gay). The balloon makers, part of a world-wide organization of magical rescuers who bespell each balloon for its intended passenger, don't know what to make of her either. All are in agreement that Ellie needs to go home. But how? And why did this happen to her?

Kai and Ellie don't wait passively for the Balloon Makers to provide answers, but instead start investigate the problem for themselves. Appallingly, the dead bodies of other time travelers start appearing on the streets of East Berlin--clearly there is some larger wrongness happening than just Ellie's trip from the future. Why, though, did she live and the others not?

The answer lies further in the past. Chapters of Ellie's story are interspersed throughout with that of her grandfather, who escaped as a teenager from Chelmno, a concentration camp in Poland, in 1942, with the help of his own red balloon. (this isn't a spoiler; we know about his balloon almost immediately because he's told Ellie about it many times).

And so the mystery unravels, or more accurately tightens and becomes more dangerous, and as Ellie and Kai spend more time together, attraction, impossible, forbidden, and powerful, builds between them.

So not a comfort read, but a gripping one that I highly recommend. Ellie couldn't Do much to solve her problems in her position as illegal foreigner in East Berlin, but that didn't make her a passive heroine needing rescue. She was able, for instance, to stay sane which is saying a lot in her cirumstances! And she was also able to learn to make little flying paper birds, which weren't much use, but which were intriguing and charming....Basically, she provided a very good perspective to share while visiting 1988 East Berlin, and that's one of the things that makes a time travel story work for me.

Although the particular plot threads are for the most part resolved, there's plenty of room for more, and indeed it is the first of a planned series. So I recommend it lots (the only down side is that you might have the song 99 Luftballons going through your head over and over and over for the next week....) Kirkus agrees with me (good job, Kirkus!)-- "An absorbing blend of historical fiction, mystery, and magical realism."

2/19/18

The Tombs, by Deborah Schaumberg (Harper Teen, Feb 20 2018), is a tense and atmospheric story set in an alternate 19th-century New York, where zepplins are common-place, but conditions for workers in the factories are much as they were in real life (which is to say, bad). Avery is one of those workers; she's a welder, a skill picked up from her mechanical genius father, and despite the fact that she's a girl, her skill has gotten her a job (with miserable hours and working conditions, but still desperately needed). Her father came back from the Civil War pretty broken, and though he found love, set up a shop selling clocks and mechanicals, and things went while for a bit, he was broken once more when his wife was taken from him. The crow-masked goons working for the insane asylum in the basement of the Tombs, the city's notorious prison, came for her a few years before the story begins, and Avery hasn't seen her since.

But now the Crows seem to have set their sights on Avery, just as she is beginning to manifest the same psychic gifts that drew their attention to her mother. Questioning her own sanity, she finds reassurance from the Gypsy community living outside the city. (NB: yes, Gypsy is the word used. The author explains this by saying that this is the word 19th-century New Yorkers would have used. But since they call themselves Romany, it doesn't seem like it would have taken much effort to have them explain to Avery that Gypsy is offensive, so that she and the author could have quit using it). With the help of the Romany, Avery begins to understand her gifts, and begins to think that she can rescue her mother from the Tombs.

But the task in front of her gets more monumental when she finds out what the whole sinister purpose of the "mental asylum" actually is. Horrible experiments are being carried out there, that could jeopardize the hopes of the working classes for a better life.... And when Avery herself is captured, and turned into a lab rat herself, her hope that she can be a rescuer dims even more.

Fortunately, even in dark prisons, there are friends...

So if you enjoy dark urban YA with a generous dollup of romance (two very worthy and helpful young men are present as love interests), a sprinkle of steampunk (incidental mechanicals as well as zeppelins), in which there's lots of atmospheric buildup before thing really get going in the last 200 pages, and if you appreciate a book where the female protagonist is a brilliant welder, has a hawk, and can do cool things with auras and life forces, and most importantly, if you can over look the grating, incessant use of an offensive descriptor, you will enjoy this. I personally found it very readable, though not exactly my preferred cup of tea (dark and urban isn't my preferred thing), and though it was slow at times, a tad too New Age during the exploration of psychic gifts when Avery is first with the Romeny, and I was grated to the limits of my endurance by the use of "gypsy". Seriosuly, it wouldn't have been hard to just switch to Romany, or better still, Romani.

2/18/18

So I have a post due for the Barnes and Noble Kids blog on books for fans of a Wrinkle in Time, so I just spent a good chunk of time scrolling through eleven years worth of posts (though I gave up in 2013). In doing so I realized that not only is it almost impossible to find good read-alikes for W in T, it is February, which means my blog is now eleven years old.

So I've pulled 11 posts from the 3500 plus I've written, to air them here again today. Only one is a book review. I haven't written much in the way of thoughtful posts for the past two years, and I feel vaugly inspired to do so more though since I didn't write any because of being busy with other things, and those things are still needing to be done, this inspiration is more or less a moot point.

Something I didn't explicitly talk about which I've been thinking more about these past few weeks is the extent to which women in Kidlit do the bulk of the unpaid gatekeeping things that bloggers do (posting, comment, running Kidlitcon, volunteering for the Cybils). So there's more food for thought here.....

--a post titled "why indexing is hard" which is really not so much about indexing as about what constitutes a "review"

--A post titled "why I wish I could be a guest in my own home" which I found amusing partly because of a comment i left on it--“My dear boy ended up throwing up, so it was all worthwhile....”In any event, thank you all for a great eleven years, and if you have any recommendation for books with all of the following things, send them my way!-brilliant girl unhappy in middle school-the importance of sibling relationships-making friends with other odd-ball kids-travelling through time and space-meeting helpful angelic like beings-good vs evil, with inspiring message that we can choose love and fight darkness not just with love but with the arts and sciences-overthrow of dystopia where utter conformity is required-visiting strange planets, and learning to love aliens by looking past their monstrous appearancethanks!

Two at Ms. Yingling Reads--Granted, by John David Anderson, and Redworld: Year One, by A.L. Collins

Three at Minerva Reads--The Nothing To See Here Hotel by Steven Butler and Steven Lenton, Bee Boy: Clash of the Killer Queens by Tony De Saulles, and Night Zoo Keeper: The Giraffes of Whispering Wood by Joshua Davidson, Giles Clare and Buzz Burman

Other Good StuffThe Cybils Award Winners were announced on Valentine's Day! Congratulations to all the finalists, in particular The Dragon with a Chocolate Heart, by Stephanie Burgis! The round 2 judges had a hard time picking just one book, and a hard time waiting till after the announcement to share their thoughts! Mark Buxton, of Say What, got all his reviews up this week (in the review list above), and at Log Cabin Library, Brenda shares her thoughts on the finalists.The shortlists for the Waterstones Children's book prize have been announced, and include a number of middle grade spec fic books.

The Amelia Bloomer list has been announced, with Miss Ellicott's School for the Magically Minded, by Sage Blackwood, representing MG Spec Fic.

2/17/18

A Problematic Paradox, by Eliot Sappingfield (Putnam, middle grade, Jan. 2018), is a great pick for kids who enjoy wild and whacky sci fi school stories, and for those who love stories of smart, misfit girls finally finding their people.

Nikola Kross is that sort of girl. Her intellect and knowledge has antagonized just about everyone in her boring, normal school in North Dakota. Her father, a mad-scientist inventor type, has rigged up a comfortable enough home of the two of them in an abandoned warehouse store, but although he's taught Nikola a lot, and provided her with a state of the art security system and incredible escape plan just in case things go wrong, he hasn't given her much affection.

Fortunately, when a nasty, non-human monster going by the name of Tabbabitha shows up after school to kidnap Nikola, after already taking her father, the security system and escape plan kick in. Nikola finds her self a student at the most unusual school on earth, a place for genius kids who are both human (the minority) and not so human kids with extraordinary abilities. She has a lot of catch up (quantum mechanics and the manipulation of reality not being on the curriculum of her old school), and she has even more figuring out to do.

Questions like "who the heck are these people?" and "can I finally make friends?" keep Nikola busy. And happily, she does make friends; her new room-mate, though she has little in common with Nikola, turns out to be just who she needs, and vice versa (the way the two of them sort out how they are going to co-habitate is lovely reading!). And of course the larger, more explosive sort of questions keep her and her companions busy as well, as they try to foil Tabbabitha's evil plottings and schemings for world domination.

It's a fun read, slowed at tad by the amount of explanations readers (and Nikola) need to make sense of things, but not so much so as to be bothersome. The friendship thread of the story was my favorite part; I found the school slightly less appealing, probably because I am older than the target audience and rather more jaded (does every school have to come with a beautiful mean girl?), but also because the headmistress got on my nerves lots (she's intended to be unhelpful, and succeeds....). Also perhaps because I'm not personally interested in devices that need batteries and equations. (Pushing further into introspection-maybe I didn't like the school because I would fail if I went there....). On a more positive note, I thought the larger conflict part was interesting (I was afraid after meeting the over-the-top Tabbabitha and her henchmonsters that it would be farcical, but it wasn't).

So short answer--I enjoyed reading it, parts very much indeed, but it's not a personal most loved favorite though it is one I'd strongly recommend to readers who do like devices and devisings, and smart girls who are good at both!

Kirkus gave it a star, referencing "an endless parade of
jokes (both sly and knee-slapping)." I am now wondering if I need to read the book again, because when I read it yesterday I was amused by many things but cannot recall a single "joke" (unless you count Tabbabitha's name). Perhaps they are jokes only people who like batteries and equations will notice. If you have read it and slapped your knee, let me know so that I can appreciate with more precision my failure as a reader!

2/14/18

So last week I got lovely book mail--I was a Winner of a prize package to celebrate the release of The Uncanny Express, by Kara LaReau (Abrams, middle grade, Jan. 2018), the second book about the Bland sisters Kale and Jaundice. Here's a photograph of my treats, using the blandest upholstery in my home as background. I especially like the little fake moustache, which I have posed ala an Edward Gorey bat between the books....

And today, while home with a sick kid, I treated myself to the Reading. And such was my reading experience that I'm going to do something I don't usually do.

Usually when I write a review of a children's book (not that I ever write reviews much of grown-up books) I try to cast my mind back to the halcyon days of my own youth, asking myself if little Charlotte would have liked the book, and wondering if "kids today" would like it.

To heck with that. I read The Uncanny Express as a grown-up, and loved it as a grown-up, and that's a valid experience too! I enjoyed it so much for two reasons.

1. It was full of very fun Agatha Christie allusions, that tickled me greatly. A crime (?) is committed on a train full of passengers with secrets. Kale and Jaundice, the Bland sisters, are passengers on the train, swept up by the self-styled Magique, Queen of Magic (who might or might not be their Aunt Shallot), a magician who's determined to make a comeback in the world of magic (the stage kind, not the fantasy kind, although that one trick at the end.....). When on the course of the train journey she disappears (murdered?) a detective manifests on board the train, and Kale and Jaundice are now swept along in the path of his detecting as he questions all the other passengers. Very much Murder on the Orient express! Lots of fun!

This is clearly an adult reaction, and I have no clue how kids who don't know Agatha Christie will react. Probably many will thing its funny in its own right, and than come to A.C and find it a knock off of something they already love.

2. Kale and Jaundice were not immediately appealing to me in their first outing. They are, indeed, bland. But the shells of their blandness are cracking in earnest here, and emotional depths and physiological realizations are bringing them to life and making them loveable. I truly care about them now.

This is the reaction of me, a mother, an identity so strong in me now that I can't undo it. Quite possibly young readers will be able to take the girls at face value and appreciate their utterly over the top neuroticness, and empathize with them on the shared experience both real and fiction kids are currently living of growing up and questioning the childhood ways once taken for granted. That would be fine too.

But in any event, I really enjoyed the book, which is very nice for me!

Thanks, Kara, for the prize package! I'll be looking forward to book three eagerly.

2/11/18

Here's what I found in my blog reading this week; please let me know if I missed your post! It was a good week of blog hunting for me, because I found two books to add to my own tbr list that I hadn't heard of before! (in case anyone is curious, I've put asterixes next to them....)

The Reviews
Christmas Carol and the Defenders of Claus by Robert L. Fouch, at Read Till Dawn

Authors and Interviews
"Why We Need Portal Stories" by Kamilla Benko, at Nerdy Book Club

Sinead O'Hart (The Eye of the North) at Minerva Reads
Lena Roy and Charlotte Jones Voiklis (Becoming Madeleine) at B and N Kids BlogOther Good Stuff
"Celebrating Wrinkle in Time With Writing" by Lena Roy, at Nerdy Book Club,and also "Some Things You Might Not Know about Madeline L'Engle" at 100 Scope Notes

2/7/18

Most middle grade fairy tale retellings use the "original" story as a springboard for wild leaps of imagination, which is just fine and results in some darn good books. Snow and Rose, by Emily Winfield Martin (Random House Oct 2017), on the other hand, is a lovely and rare example of a retelling for middle grade readers that fills in the blanks of a story so organically that you can hardly see the joins.

Snow White and Rose Red was a favorite of mine--it's about two girls who live with their mother and periodically meet and rescue a grumpy dwarf and a bear who's really a transformed prince becomes their friend...and really there's so much wild imaging going on here that it doesn't need much more! So Emily Martin doesn't leap with it; instead she gives the girls a backstory of wealth, and then sends them out to live a meager life in the forest, with a father who is missing, and a community of others doing the best they can in the forest to befriend, and warn, and share...And she gives the strange little man a power and point that drives the plot of the story instead of dropping into it and then poofing away. And adding to the Realness of the story, Snow and Rose are fine characters and good sisters, with distinct personalities and strengths.

As is the case with the original, at first the happenings seem random, but as you read along, you, and the sisters, find that things are more interconnected than they seem. There is a mystery the girls must unravel...before they, like the bear, are enchanted...

Adding to the enchantment of the story are beautiful illustrations, mostly grey with just touches of read, both double page spreads and chapter decorations. They are illustrations that make you feel like you are reading a book that matters and has the weight of magic, without being so rich in their own right that they distract.

It's been a while since I read this (I got a review copy from the publisher for the Cybils Awards last fall), so I looked to see if I said anything on Goodreads, and I (usefully, for a wonder) did:

a very nice retelling of the fairy tale; stuck close to the original, but added characterization and details about the world of forest and cottage that made it pleasing reading.

Which reminds me that if you like stories of moving into cottages, a genre that I myself like lots, this is a good one!

2/6/18

One of the fun bonuses of getting your hands on a new to you vintage children's book is at the end of the book where, if you are lucky, you get a list of other books you've never heard of, sometimes with blurbs. This luck happened to me last month, and as a result I treated myself to a few book purchases, including The Hubbles' Treasure Hunt, by Elaine Horseman (1965). This is the second of a series about a group of English kids living in an old house in a cathedral town who have found a spell book, that includes a spell for travelling in time, which is the focus of the plot.

It begins when the kids (two sets of siblings, 3 boys, 2 girls; one set living with grandfather, the others the children the housekeeper) discover a clue to a treasure hunt hidden in a doll carved during the English Civil War. With the encouragement, even collusion, of the grandfather, the magical recipe given in the spell book acquired in book 1 (Hubbles' Bubble) is concocted and an expedition is sent into the past, hoping that it will be the past of the English Civil War so they can find the treasure. Instead, the grandfather and one of the older boys ends up in far off prehistory, and when they return home, they inadvertently bring with them a baby prehistoric hippo.

A trip to take the hippo home ends up landing the kids in the middle of a Civil War scrimmage, where by happy coincidence they do make contact with the author of the treasure hunt clue, but they come home nott much wiser about where it's hidden. They do gain interesting backstory for people involved, though, which I liked. The young man who hid the treasure went down in history as a traitor to both sides, but his story is not at all black and white....

But then it's more hippo wrangling. The hippo, back in the present, escapes and must be found...another spell is used, so the kids can breath underwater and travel down the river looking for the hippo.

At which point, I'm, like, enough already with the hippo! I want English Civil War time travel and treasure hunt with tragic people of the past in distress!

But no. More hippo chasing ensues. Sigh.

Then finally two of the kids figure out the clue, and find the treasure (with help from the hippo. sigh again), and it is lovely treasure from the cathedral, hidden from the Round-heads, in a beautiful carved chest (one of the most lovely fictional chests I've ever read). So that is nice.

I almost really liked this one, but too much hippo, not enough good time travel, though I realize that for many readers, the fun of prehistoric hippos causing consternation amongst the townsfolk might be wonderful. The kids were a nice lot though, and it was good that there weren't intrusions of class distinction. If the other books (there are three in total) come my way, I'll be happy, but I won't seek them out.Kirkus reviewed the book when it came out in the US in 1966, and I don't think the reviewer was at all conversant with mid 20th century UK books, saying that the characters "keep up a steady banter often pleasantly silly, frequently affected, and always very British." I, who have read hundreds of mid 20th century books, found the dialogue none of the above and I really wonder what is meant by "affected." I am also baffled by this sentence: "The transition to fantasy is always smoothly made, although the course of events often seems illogical or incidental." I myself think that when you are making your own spells out a Victorian spell book, the course of events is de facto not going to be logical...I had not trouble following what was going on, for what that's worth. Also for what it's worth, I've never once criticized a book for transitioning to fantasy too abruptly....so perhaps I'm just not as keenly sensitive as the Kirkus reviewer of yesteryear.

2/4/18

Welcome to this week's round up of middle grade sci fi and fantasy from around the blogs; please let me know if I missed your post.The Reviews
Edge of Extinction series by Laura Martin, at Redeemed Reader

2/1/18

Sisters of Glass, by Naomi Cyprus (HarperCollins, Nov. 2017), is a good pick for fans of middle grade revolution fantasy, a sub-genre I've just coined for myself in which the young protagonists lead the oppressed against tyranny (having just now thought of this subgenre, I haven't gotten a lot of examples together yet, just Westmark by Lloyd Alexander, and Lian Tanner's books, but I feel there are quite a few...). Neither of the two heroines of this particular book imagined that they would be leaders of a revolution in a world full of magic, where the elite bend material things into enchantments. Nalah has no idea this destiny awaits because she's from a different world altogether, in which magic is forbidden, which is horrible for her because she's fizzing with it, putting herself and her father in great danger, Halan because she's the pampered princess, only child and heir, and doesn't know the horrible details of the kings oppression. She just knows that she's bored and tired of being a failure for not having any magic of her own.

But when Nalah crafts a magic mirror, and steps through, she finds that Halan is her twin on the other side, in a world that mirrors her own where her magic can flow freely. And Halan, who's snuck out of her comfortable cage in the palace, only to be captured by the rebels who are fighting against her father's cruelty, has to decide if she's going to help this strange twin....or support her father.

So of course, this being a classic mg rev. fant, as it were, Halan ends up leading the rebellion (a rather brisk and successful one) and Nalah must then decide whether or not she will stay in the world of magic...

This is a good story, but I had a heck of a time getting into it. The two girls don't meet until just before page 200, which is a lot of set up before things start actually happening. I'm glad I pushed on through, because once the two girls meet, there's action and adventure, and plots and magic, and I found myself enjoying it lots. But half the book for set up really is an awful lot; I loved the craft based magic, and so I stuck with it primarily for that. And though I then enjoyed it, the resolution seemed almost too quick and easy, and the world building was a little bit throw in the middle of it all. But for the sake of how quickly the last 100 pages turned, I feel I can recommend it, with just a bit of reservation. After all, not many books have glass falcons made by the heroine coming to life, and I'll read a lot for a glass falcon....

Kirkus is more enthusiastic than me, so go read their review if you have doubts.

complaint about the cover-the two girls are supposed to be essentially identical, details of hair cut aside, and both dark haired. Why then is the princess one blond?

1/27/18

I was one of the participants in Multicultural Children's Book Day who was matched with World Wisdom, and I received two books to review. The first, Rock Maiden, by Natasha Yim, I reviewed earlier today. The second is Spirit of the Earth: Indian Voices On Nature (May 2017), edited by Michael Oren Fitzgerald and Joseph A. Fitzgerald, with a foreword by Joseph Bruchac. It is not a children's book, but it is one that middle grade and YA readers can certainly appreciate.

This book is a gathering of stunning images, both color pictures of places, and historic pictures of Native peoples living within places, juxtaposed with quotations from Native speakers about persons (human and nonhuman) living within places, and the relationships that join people to the earth and sky. It is not a book to rush through, but one to read meditatively and thoughtfully, listening to the words as one reads. As Bruchac puts it in the introduction, " [T]he quotations....[are] so well chosen, so well paired with the images, and so beautifully centered on our appreciation, understanding and lasting reliance on that natural world, they do what our traditional stories have always done-engage and teach."

So it is a lovely book, with lovely pictures and words.

I did have two reservations though. The first is one of temporality--Native peoples are still here, and yet with the exception of just two quotations at the very end, both the words and the images of Native persons are from the past, reinforcing the stereotype of vanished Indians. I would have liked images of living people, and more contemporary quotations, to put a lie to that stereotype. My second reservation is that the texts were drawn from previously published sources, mostly written by anthropologists and ethnographers years ago. Some of the quotations are part of ceremonies, and I would have felt more comfortable if the Tribes whose words these are had given permission for them to be included here (I didn't see any acknowledgement that such permission was sought). Without that permission, I couldn't accept the words as a gift freely given. The fact that the foreword was written by Joseph Bruchac was some comfort, as he is a well-regarded Abenaki writer, and if he is comfortable with the book, that makes me feel better about it; also, his words are very much in the present tense, which gives some balance in that regard.

Despite my reservations, I'll say again that it is a lovely book, and one that offers riches to those who want to learn and who want to think about being in the world.

Long ago in Hong Kong, Ling Yee feel in love with a young fisherman, Ching Yin. Many more wealthy men would have gladly married her, but Ching Yin's kindness won her heart. And they were happy, and had a son. Then a tremendous storm scattered the fishing fleet, and when it passed, Ching Yin did not come home. Every day Ling Yee took her baby up to the headland and looked out over the sea, waiting for her beloved in vain.

Ling Yee's parents prayed to Tin Hau, the patron goddess of fishermen, for help. The goddess was touched by the young woman's sorrow, and decided to end it (rather drastically). She sent a lightning bolt from the heavens, and turned mother and child to stone. But about a year later, a young man came to town. No one recognized him at first, but he was Ching Yin. Happily, Tin Hau once more intervened, undoing the stone enchantment, and reuniting the little family.

It is a beautiful and haunting story, with lovely, evocative illustrations in soft colors. The tension of the story is great enough to keep a young child's interest, and the happy ending offers reassurance. The stone mother and child, standing looking out to sea, is an image that will stay with young readers for their whole lives. If you are looking for picture books that will widen your young child's world, this is a lovely one!

When Natasha Yim was a girl growing up in Hong Kong,she was fascinated by the actual rock that is the basis for the story. Amah Rock is a natural formation that looks like a mother and child, and though of course (since it is still there) the happy ending of the book never happened in real life, that story seemed to sad to her, so she transformed it.

Maddie is a big fan of Cinderella, and she's proud of the diorama she made of the story for school. But her stepbrother Holden is not impressed with either, and points out the many logical flaws in the story; for instance, surely Cinderella isn't the only girl with that particular shoe size! And soon Maddie's diorama has changed to something not in the real story, and all the book versions have gone horribly wrong too. Holden's logic has broken Cinderella, and her happy ending is no more!

Holden and Maddie magically enter the story (not of their own volition; it just happens), and once there Madddie's determined to set things right. Holden, though, is an uncertain ally at best, because he's more interested in things making sense, which isn't so useful when dealing with fairy tales. But the two of them manage to start tidying things up, starting with the stepsister who's now going to marry the prince; this wasn't her idea (she'd rather go to art school). The stepmother is the villain of the piece, and getting her out of the way of Cinderella's happily ever after turns out to be rather a tricky job. But once Cinderella and her stepsisters (one of whom is now Maddie, disguised by enchantment) put their past behind them and start working as a team, and once Holden and Maddie do the same, things fall into place.

It's a lot of fun, and interesting to visit a well known story through Holden's fresh, critical eyes. The author also adds a rational explanation for the vexing question of why the prince needed the shoe fitting to recognize his true love again--he has face blindness. The resulting story is quite a bit more interesting than the original, although happy ever after is once again achieved (I found myself cheering more enthusiastically from the emancipated stepsister, now free to pursue her own dreams, than I did for Cinderella, who's romance still remains founded on the flimsy foundation of insta love...).

There are many bits of very kid friendly humor, and the illustrations entertain as well. It's the sort of book you can start reading aloud to kids even younger than 9, and then leave lying around as bait for independent reading. Kids who enjoy this sort of disrupted fairy tale will then be happy to read the other books in the series, in which Holden ruins other stories in similar fashion. It is also a good teaching tool about thinking critically about plot, and learning to recognize plot holes; Holden makes many valid points!

Two Middle Grade Castle fantasies--Wednesdays in the Tower, by Jessica Day George, and The Castle Behind Thorns, by Merrie Haskell, at Falling LettersAuthors and Interviews
Nigel Quinlan (The Cloak of Feathers) at MG Book Village

1/17/18

I was just reminded the other day of Waiting on Wednesday, a meme hosted by Jill at Breaking the Spine. Jill doesn't seem to be blogging any more, but it is a darn good meme, and so I will pick it up again!

A pleasing sort of Georgette Heyer meet Scarlet Pimpernel vibe to the cover....

Here is the blurb from Goodreads, with my thoughts in red.

Two sisters ("sisters" always catches my eye; being a sister is a corner stone of my own identity) fight with manners (I'm reading "manners" as wit, intelligence, and snark, so yes), magic (always good), and mayhem (mayhem works less well for me. I don't like beautiful things to be broken, which often happens during mayhems) to reclaim their family's name, in this captivating historical fantasy (always good) adventure. House Mederos was once the wealthiest merchant family (merchant families are some of the most interesting to read about, I think). in Port Saint Frey. Now the family is disgraced, impoverished, and humbled by the powerful Merchants Guild. Daughters Yvienne and Tesara Mederos are determined to uncover who was behind their family's downfall and get revenge. But Tesara has a secret - could it have been her wild magic that caused the storm that destroyed the family's merchant fleet? (I want to know more about her wild magic now) The sisters' schemes quickly get out of hand - gambling is one thing (and not my favorite thing to read about), but robbing people is another...

Together the sisters must trust each another to keep their secrets and save their family.

1/16/18

How Oscar Indigo Broke the Universe (and Put It Back Together Again), by David Teague (HarperCollins Nov. 2017), is a fun new middle grade time travel book, just the thing if you enjoy tense baseball moments, friendship stories, and the odd pterodactyl appearing unexpectedly because the universe has been broken. Broken by a boy named Oscar, who pressed a button on an old watch that stopped time for 19 seconds and let him hit his first home run, winning the game.

Those missing 19 seconds have seriously derailed the universe; pterodactyls are the least of it. So Oscar has to somehow figure out how to set things right again...and he does.

In the meantime, he's making friends with his new team-mate Lourdes, going back in time to see Babe Ruth be struck out by another 12 year old girl (Oscar's octogenarian friend in the present, and the one who gave him the watch), and worrying about the precarious state of his mother's finances....and in the meantime there are rouge waves, a double sun, trees with tentacles, and 19 second flashes of other phenomena bursting out of their own time and into his....

It is fun and warm and a little silly but not too much so (and I'm very sensitive to too much silliness so you can trust me on this). Oscar, benchwarmer and tireless team morale booster, is really a good person, and sort of infuses the book with his personality. And if you like baseball, you'll enjoy it even more than I did! It's the sort of book where you feel the author's really enjoying telling you the story--here, have 19 seconds of Carolina Parakeets! sort of fun. And Oscar's struggle to redeem himself after cheating, and the rather melancholy passing of his elderly friend, adds emotional weight that gives the story point.

Kirkus and I are completely in agreement. From their starred review: "Teague weaves the tale with gentle expressions of teamwork, friendship,
honesty, and compassion. Fantasy feels real, and it all works beautifully."

1/15/18

Love Sugar Magic: A Dash of Trouble, by Anna Meriano (Walden/HarperCollins, January 2017), is a classic book of what happens when a kid stumbles into magic, tries to use it for good, and things go horrible wrong! (I'm thinking classic as in Edward Eager here; his characters would enjoy this one very much).

Leonora Logroño's family owns a lovely bakery in Rose Hill, Texas, but eleven-year-old Leo is considered too young to help, even when the bakery's busiest day, the town's Dia de los Muertos festival, comes around. Determined not to be left out again, she sneaks out of school and down to the bakery, where she learns what's really going on without her--her four older sisters, mother and aunt are brujas (Mexican magic users), who can imbue their baked goods with magic! Leo is now even more determined to be part of things, and so when her best friend Caroline has a problem involving a close friend, a boy, who was unkind to her, Leo decides to see if she has the gift for magic too!

She does. But of course she lacks any experience, guidance, or understanding of the implications of the spells she finds in the family's recipe book of magic baking. And things go wrong in that special horrible embarrassing middle school way. More magical backed goods later, things are even more wrong, and now Caroline's friend is only a few inches high and hanging out in Leo's old doll house.

Leo has reached the point where can't fix things, but fortunately her family rallies around her, and with both understanding and forgiveness, helps her sort things out.

Full of humor, friendship, and strong, loving family ties, as well as delicious baked goods (recipes included), this is a total charmer! The recipes that Leo finds are in Spanish, which aren't translated; Leo herself is not fluent in Spanish, and so her own efforts to understand them help the non-Spanish reading reader with no loss of momentum. And not to worry if you don't know Spanish-three of the recipes (though without the magic) are given in English in the back of the book!

Give this one to young bakers, young readers who love the intrusion of magic into the everyday world, and those looking for windows or mirrors into the of a Mexican American family who are both ordinary and extraordinary! Read it yourself if you love Edward Eager as a kid!

I was left with one unanswered burning question though--if you make flying pig cookies that really fly, do you eat them, or just let them fly around until they become crumbs?